Writing a Business Grant Proposal

Most individuals are constantly looking for ways to earn additional or increased income, primarily by starting their own businesses. For those who can’t afford to juggle 2 or 3 jobs, they opt to start their own business. Aside from these individuals, those who can’t afford to be employed, particularly housewives, people with disabilities, and the elderly, also decide to start their own business.

Although these individuals have the general idea, and sometimes business skills and capabilities, they lack the most necessary ingredient: the funding capital. At the current times of economic recession, acquiring the necessary funding capital to start even a small business is indeed difficult and complicated.

On the other hand, most individuals who intend to start their own businesses right away find relief in grant opportunities. These are often times provided by private and public funding organizations, as well as the federal government through recovery grants. However, applying for, and winning, grant opportunities are not easy and effortless.

To apply for these grant opportunities, one should be equipped with a well written and fully justified business grant proposal. But, one should know, though, that a business grant proposal is different from the usual business proposal. Below are some of their differences:

1. While a business proposal intends to acquire a joint venture, a business grant proposal intends to seek financial assistance.
2. A business proposal usually results to both parties having increased sales, profits, or income. A business grant proposal usually results to one party being funded and the other being recognized and furthering its goals and missions.
3. While both proposals result to partnerships, a business proposal particularly involves exchange of skills, services, products, personnel, etc. A business grant proposal, meanwhile, primarily involves an awarding of grant funds, which will eventually result to an accomplishment by the funding organization.

Now that the differences between a business proposal and a business grant proposal have been identified, an individual applying for business funds, like you, will need to know how to effectively write a business grant proposal. Whether you are planning to write your own business grant proposal or intending to hire a professional grant writer, you should learn about these few tips:

1. Organize your goals and objectives
Since you are just starting your business, oftentimes your ideas are generalized and you have no fixed start-up plan. Hence, you should first organize your goals and objectives to get a clear picture of your needs and an estimate, if not exact, of your start-up budget.

Having an organized and clear goals and objectives will not only help you organize the entire business grant proposal, but it will also give your prospective funders a comprehensible overview of your intentions in applying for financial assistance.

Added Tip: Throw in a few statements on how you are intending to help underprivileged communities and/or members of the population. These are usually the focus and intent of most funding organizations: to help improve the quality of life in these areas and/or of these individuals.

2. Prioritize your needs
Before applying for business grant assistance, you must know that not all your needs will be granted by funding organizations. Most funding organizations intend to assist more business owners with small amounts of grants rather than allocating all their funds to a single business. Most funding organizations find this strategy most effective in furthering their missions and goals.

So, in order to receive financial assistance from your prospective funder, you must prioritize your needs. If possible, indicate that the funder’s assistance will become instrumental in making your goals possible. Note that most funding organizations also look for projects where in their contribution will make significance.

3. Include community and/or environment benefits
To increase your chances of acquiring funds, include community and/or environmental benefits. Like what has been previously mentioned, most funding organizations look for projects that intend to create impact within the community and/or the environment. Know that while most organizations will directly fund environment and community projects, there are still those that provide funding to environment and community conscious businesses.

4. Focus on your market’s needs
In order to get the full attention of funding organizations, you must focus your proposal on your market’s needs rather your own needs. You must also mention how your business project will satisfy the needs of your market. Most funding organizations intend to provide funding to those business grant proposals that clearly describe how the owners will provide for the needs of the target market through their assistance.

5. Refrain from mentioning personal gain
Funding organizations can easily identify personal interests in a proposal. These result to instant rejection and/or disqualification from the funding program. So, you should refrain from mentioning any personal gains in your business grant proposal.

You may not be aware of it, but funders usually interpret some items in your budget plan as pertaining to personal gains. These include your salary, cars, home acquisition for office space, cellular phones for the entire staff, and others. Hence, you must think more than twice before placing an item in your budget plan. Otherwise, you should be prepared to justify the items you include in your budget plan.

Other than writing your own business grant proposal, you may also opt to hire professional grant writers and/or grant writing companies as these companies and writers have all the necessary skills to write the business grant proposal you’ll need. These individuals have extensive years of experience in grant writing, making them more knowledgeable of what funders are basically looking for in a business grant proposal.

Either hiring a professional grant writer or writing your own business grant proposal, you should still remember the previous tips to increase your chances of being awarded with the funds you need for your business.